The present invention relates to a flexible pipe assembly of an endoscope which is designed to be inserted into a body cavity and to a flexible pipe assembly which is connected between the manual operating section of the endoscope and an external device or the like. A specific feature of the invention resides in the arrangement of the flexible pipe assembly in which channel forming pipes used for various purposes are arranged to be bundled together and to be removed when necessary.
Since the introduction of the endoscope for various medical examination and medical treatment purposes, a variety of optical and electrical elements have been proposed for the endoscope. These elements are designed to be extended through channels in the endoscope to designated points in the body cavity and to external devices through the manual operating section of the endoscope.
If a number of such channels are simply bundled together to a flexible pipe assembly which is to be inserted into the body cavity, then a number of spaces must be formed between the channel forming pipes. Accordingly, it is necessary to use an outer pipe having a relatively large diameter to cover all the bundled channel forming pipes. Thus, the assembly of the pipes has a low flexibility with the result that it is difficult to insert the pipe assembly into the body cavity. That is, because of this, the performance of the endoscope with the pipe assembly is lowered. Furthermore, if the outer pipe or the water supplying channel tube is broken, the other channel forming pipes may be adversely affected and the inside of the outer pipe may be contaminated.
In order to eliminate the above-described difficulties which are due to the use of channel forming pipes which have been simply bundled together as described above, the following two techniques have been proposed in the art. In a first one of the two techniques, as disclosed in Japanese Utility Model Publication No. 27116/1973 the channel forming pipes for the aforementioned elements are bundled together and are then molded with synthetic resin. In the other technique as disclosed in Japanese Laid-Open Utility Model Application No. 111591/1978 a flexible pipe is employed which has hollow parts serving as channel forming pipes and hollow parts into which channel forming pipes are inserted.
An endoscope of this type uses elements such as a bundle of optical fibers and electrical conductors which are relatively high in durability but also elements such as an air supplying pipe, a water supplying pipe and a suction pipe which are susceptible to damage and must be frequently inspected and cleaned. Accordingly, in the above-described conventional technique in which the channel forming pipes for these elements are bundled together and are then molded or the channel forming pipes are inserted into the hollow parts to form one pipe assembly, the bundling effect may be expected. However, if the suction pipe is clogged up for instance, it is rather difficult to eliminate the trouble and it may be necessary to replace the entire flexible pipe assembly.
Accordingly, an object of the invention is to provide a flexible pipe assembly for an endoscope in which the channel forming pipes can be sufficiently bundled together and, among the channel forming pipes, one to several channel forming pipes can be readily removed from the assembly.